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The Fallen looks pretty awesome. I picked up two one for display and one loose. Picked up skids,DesertBrawl,Wheelie, and Chromia tonight. Wheelie is probably my least favorite. In Deluxe mode he isn't scale.

Well, we kinda knew the Fallen was Cybertronian already, since Hasbro decided that he is a "multiversal singularity", meaning that the Fallen in the movie is the same one from the Dreamwave comic that introduced him as one of the original thirteen.

SPOILERS
===OK, since the spoiler's sort of out of the bag now with "the original 13," The Fallen was "a Prime," who wanted the power of the AllSpark and the Star Harvester (that implodes stars and collects energon from them) so he turned to evil and murdered the other Primes, except for a "junior" who was hidden away (naturally, that junior was Optimus when he was only a Tonka truck or Matchbox size?) Anyway, Primes have special abilities and powers. Apparently, Megatron was duped by this evil Prime (is this sort of like the Nemesis Prime thing?) and he became an agent of The Fallen who is his master. Megatron dreams of becoming a Prime himself and probably deposing The Fallen so he can rule all on his own.

Optimus only seems weaker than Megatron because he is younger and less experienced, but young Prime will only get stronger with every Autobot victory.===

Meanwhile, I opened Voyager DEMOLISHER. Contrary to others here, I think he's pretty cool. I think I like the fact that his being a wheelbot kind of makes him unique and more alien.

===When you say he murdered the other Prime's, do you mean the rest of the original 13 or just some random Prime's that came later?===

===The rest of the original 12 - according to the story.

Optimus Prime may very well be the 13th. Apparently, he was so young at the time that he doesn't even fully understand all this, and while they're fighting each other, Megatron explains some of it to him - and says, "If he (Optimus Prime) doesn't know this, he's not worthy to lead Cybertron."

So there might be 11/12 dead, with The Fallen being the 12th, and Optimus being the 13th and not exactly understanding that until the timeframe of this movie.===

Ok, that was way too much spoilerism. A light discussion is one thing, but you took it too far.

Picked up a couple figures. Knock Out:

Knock Out - black & green motorcycle. Bike mode is a lesson in the frustration of "alllllmmmmost". Some good ideas, I love the grips forming the speedometer for example, but there are a few design flaws. Rear forks are locked into the wrong angle making the bike too low and stretched out, a few degrees different and it would have looked fine. The front wheel doesn't lock down, so it changes its angle easily from lower to higher (however, they designed it so the figure can turn his wheel which is cool). They sculpted brake rotors and calipers, but the rear wheel is designed with the halves on the wrong side, so the caliper ends up hidden behind the drive chain gear where it cannot be seen, and the right side ends up without a rotor looking thin and empty (the caliper is part of the fork and still waiting for the rotor) - this could be fixed with a pin-tap, but the area is VERY hard to work with because it's at the end of the arm and has little support. Finally, while they were going for a garish color scheme, it doesn't deliver, the black and dark greens don't really look good here.

Transformation is fairly bike-basic, has a cute touch with the faring becoming chest halves, but otherwise it's standard stuff. I do like how the feet become the intercooler in bike mode though, great touch. The majority of the cowling ends up as kibble on the sides of the legs, and pops off very easily (it appears to be designed intentionally that way). There's frustration in how the waist and legs transform back to alt mode, in that nobody bothered to sculpt a stop for where it goes, it's very easy to go right past the proper location which is only about 2/3rds of the way through the leg range, and nothing locks down until it's found its place first.

Bot mode is also basic stuff. There are a few touches of movie, like the digitigrade (chicken) ankles; and the upper thighs actually go a little skeletal to suggest the minimal materials to work with in the motorcycle, but that concept isn't carried through anywhere else, and they're hidden by the kibble panels which pop off easily. The head is stubby, slightly insect-mouthy, and Wolverine-mask shaped, it ends up low on detail and personality. The chest with faring halves looks strong from lower angles and gappy from upper ones. The front wheel rotates about 60 degrees to semi-fold-up against the back (there is a block in place so it won't rotate beyond this, or 30 degrees the opposite way, not sure why they care). The paint is kinda sloppy and thick, the black plastic hides some of the few finer details. Rear wheel halves end up as Energon Arcee-esque shoulder kibble, but at least it can be folded back or horizontal, and they sculpted a little fan blade action in there so he can be hover-man. The side kibble comes off and tabs into slots above the front wheel to become Kickback-style wings, which really are just more kibble in my book. Left arm has a hand, right arm is a gun hollow behind the barrel (I HATE HOLLOW GUNS!), and the barrel is painted titanium-champagne which is why I chose this over the upcoming Reverb repaint which leaves this unpainted. Aside from the Autobot logo on his chest, everything about this figure says "Decepticon". There's a significant design flaw with the waist, it tabs into the lower torso but nothing holds it there, so it's inevitable that he'll end up separating here with any handling. The shoulder plates also pop out when moving the the arm articulation, but not as bad as the waist failure.

Articulation is a lot of ball joints, many limited. Head is super limited ball joint, shoulders a very limited ball joint, hover-fan-wheel-halves on a ball joint, elbows on a ball joint, hips on semi-limited ball joints , kees on a ball joint, and the low digitgrade ankles are on a hinge. A lot of the joints are loose, shoulders are loose, hips are VERY loose, ankles are loose; yet the elbows are so tight they cause problems for the shoulder transformation plates. The loose joints do allow him to stand on his own, just barely though, and posing makes this worse. Between the loose joints and limited articulation, he's a rough one to pose.

Knock Out slightly disappoints at every turn due to lazy design, underwhelming deco, and a myriad of loose joints. He feels like a basic Basic, if you know what I mean, fair detail but nowhere near enough, overused transformation, not enough new ideas or fresh takes on existing ideas, and a bit too much kibble. The Insecticon notes feel vague and well out of place on an Autobot, although the sculpt and colors fit Insecticon far better than they do Autobot. Bottom line, too much "almost", not enough "yeah!", it's not a terrible figure but it's hardly inspiring either.

Part of me wants to tap out those pins and fix the rear wheel situation, carve away the stop-block on the front wheel for a flat back, and work on those ball joints. Another part of me wants to return it for my $8 back due to the assembly design mistake.

After I wrote that, this afternoon I did try those customizations. Unfortunately, Knock Out lived up to his name, as I knocked the wheel hub partway off the left wheel half, so that's an $8 mistake. The pins look incredibly difficult to pull because there is not enough surrounding area to brace the rest of the toy area against for tapping the pin out. The only other alternative is the soldering gun trick, which I've never used before, and I don't trust myself around fire. However, I figured I'd make the other changes I was going to, and just swap out the new bike's replacement part once I buy it. First I cut down the unbroken rear fork arm's rear block so that the fork now angles properly, it was a tight area so I did most of the work on the fingernail grinder, but it worked, and from the left side anyway the bike looks much better with a slight change in fork ankle (this right fork half is not going back on the bike anyway, so I left it off). Then I cut off the block which keeps the front wheel from turning 180 degrees, the wheel is on a plastic peg that nicely pops out, making cutting a breeze, and I finished it with the nail grinder. Now the figure can have a middle hover-fan that folds flat against the back (it sticks out as much as before, but looks even), I didn't like the angle they chose for it with that block.

The other figure I picked up was after I saw the "unofficial but clearly designed that way" photo of this guy, Sideways:

Alt mode:
Sideways is basically an Audi R8, the wide, low-slung budget rocket that sports a Lamborghini engine for under $120k. However, the changes due to not being licensed include moving the air inlets from the doors back to the fender, altering the carbon-fiber B-pillar, and hamper the look of the headlights and inlets below them, all of which the R8 gets its sportiest looks, leaving this car still looking like an Audi, but now a little too much like a less-exciting one. The nose of the car seems a little stretched to me, and slightly raised, but this is more about comparisons to the source material. The back window over the engine is also dropped from the round shape to a shelf, but this isn't a hit to its sporty looks. The paint is a dark gunmetal with black accents, unfortunately the toy relies heavily on paint and many of the samples I've seen at the stores have notably scratched paint on the roof and hood. The windows are translucent magenta (although I believe at least some are painted that color rather than naturally so), the headlamps clear. The vehicle mode is generally solid, it's lightweight but doesn't feel cheap, and there is no kibble to speak of, although there are a few seam lines showing - nothing drastic though. The underside has some kibble which just hits the ground, you can barely roll the car on all 4 wheels. It's a decent sportscar mode, although the changes keep it from being as cool as the real R8, and it's one of those cars that looks more exciting from ground level than above.

Transformation:
It starts with an automorph that's fun and effective, although not always consistent. Push in the grill and the lower torso springs down while the front wheels fold in. I really like that these springs are strong and confident, yet leaves the parts still confident in alt mode as well - I hate saggy wheels. From there it's taking apart panels and folding out parts. I find the official method frustrating and leading to possible breakage, the doors simply don't want to leg go of the rear fenders, while folding up the rear panels and then pulling out the legs to start makes a much easier transition. The official instructions are also dead wrong about how the backpack forms to the figure, it says to fold it all the way to the top, yet there are tabs and slots partway through which lines the rear end up with the chest and looks significantly better. The same instructions also neglect folding up the triangular panels at the back of the hood, even though these give the neck-collar some much-needed context . Getting it back to alt mode isn't too bad, but the rear end and arms don't feel like they have a specific area to go at first, it requires actually finding those spots where they do get locked down to finish the job.

Bot mode:
Sideways ends up only really using the hood, front wheels, and rear wheels and fenders for his robot mode. From the side, there are a few gaps, but he gets away with it pretty darn well and does have a core. The rest of the car is kibble, though if you put the backpack onto the slots, it feels a lot more "whole" and less like kibble. Although some similarities to Barricade in the larger sense exist, up close this figure is more its own man, though one could easily believe this was Barricade upgrading to a different alt mode. The figure adds a lot more red and black to the mix, the black looks fine if a little boring, the red is very boring and toyetic but hardly a dealbreaker and would probably look good with a black paint wash. Sideswipe is fairly tall, though the various wings add even more. He's also wide at the hips and shoulders, but doesn't look like a bruiser. His legs are thin and digitigrade, officially they use the rear wheels as the majority of the foot with a tiny front foot, and this works pretty darn well, there are tabs to keep the wheels from rolling, and the front feet stabilize balance. The rear fenders fly off the wheel-feet at an angle, since he's a "courier", this suggests winged boots a la the roman god Mercury. However, the small front feet can also be used as the only foot, and if you unpeg the rear fenders you get an extra mid-leg point of articulation that raises him up even taller and makes the legs more "normal", but then he's standing on tiny feet (which in the movie universe is hardly "out there"), it works but isn't as stable with them dainty feet. The head is basically another movie Decepticon, but has slightly more recognizable features, some gunmetal paint accents, and light-piped magenta eyes that really come through great. The head is on a collar, it's a bit of a cheat but with the backpack folded down and the rear corners of the hood folded up, it looks fine (the more you angle the chest down, the better it looks, and the more you look at it straight on, the worse). He's got 2 sets of wings, the windows and sills create Kickback-style wings that can be moved a little, and the doors are wings on the shoulders which have enough articulation to be moved around to a lot of different orientations. He's got a good amount of sculpted detail, I especially like how the front fenders pulled away from the torso as far as they'll go reveal more stuff and give the figure a narrower chest. The figure's arms are pretty thick, they house the Mech Alive gimmick and clearly were going to house a BETTER iteration of the gimmick before Hasbro got cheap and neutered it. As it exists now, moving the elbow turns a piston inside the bicep (which I do like) and slowly turns a greeble just above the elbow. However, the free-spinning faux-wheel and saw on the forearms reek of "turn the greeble to spin the saw", which would have been WAY cooler than having the saw and faux-wheel spin freely. The black arms could have used some color as well, especially the black saw blade, and why only 1 hand got a true thumb is beyond me.

Articulation:
Well articulated in the upper body with lots going on and very little kibble or hindrances, the head can barely look up and the doors and front fenders occasionally get in the way of some arm poses, but that's about it. The lower body has ok articulation, the hips do most of that, with only hinged knees doing anything else (the tiny front foot is ball-jointed, but using the wheel as the majority of the foot, it's not as usable). The leg articulation isn't a drawback for posing though, as it basically covers everything a human leg can do (the upper thigh swivel comes in handy); on mine the left hip ball joint is loose though. If you can find the balance points then the waist, knee, toe, and hip articulation can get this figure into some really extreme poses, I have mine leaning waaaay forward like he's running or skating, and yet it's quite stable.

Overall: B+
Likable, exciting, fun, and well detailed. Poseability is very good once you understand the balance points with the feet and digitigrade knees, and it certainly pulls off wheel-feet better than most. It manages its kibble pretty well, but it is largely a shellformer. Deco is good but could be better, especially the red plastic, and the gunmetal paint seems to be easy to scratch. The mech alive gimmick is sleepy and obviously had something more exciting in mind, so it feels like a lost opportunity, but isn't a major drawback.

I definitely will be buying dlx Dead End when he comes out and won't feel bad about owning this mold twice.

I have some information about The Fallen that I gleaned from reading the entire movie adaptation to comic book. I can relate that here if no one objects.

It leads me to believe that The Fallen should be at least the size of Megatron or Prime. (Megatron is supposed to be bigger than Prime).

And The Fallen IS DEFINITELY a Cybertronian (aka Transformer).

I never said he wasn't a Cybertronian, just that I had heared in-movie context he didn't transform.

Originally Posted by Mvader91

The Fallen looks pretty awesome. I picked up two one for display and one loose. Picked up skids,DesertBrawl,Wheelie, and Chromia tonight. Wheelie is probably my least favorite. In Deluxe mode he isn't scale.

Man, Wheelie is a HORRIBLE pegwarmer at my local Target. That figure is way over-shipping.

Well, we kinda knew the Fallen was Cybertronian already, since Hasbro decided that he is a "multiversal singularity", meaning that the Fallen in the movie is the same one from the Dreamwave comic that introduced him as one of the original thirteen.

Ugh, I hadn't heard he was deemed that, that's really bad. It means there's a risk Pat Lee is getting recognition or payment. Kind of a goofy concept to make him the same guy across all the multiple TF universes that use him.